Photograhped reproduced from Flight International Online Edition
The UK's newly formulated defense industrial strategy (DIS), announced in early Dec 2005, indicates that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) will be its last manned combat aircraft. All future efforts for developing air combat capability will focus on unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs)
The DIS may be regarded as a document that is profound because it acknowledges, in unequivocal terms, the impending end of the era of manned combat flying.
No one is actually surprised by what the DIS signals. Over the past few years UCAVs have progressively demonstrated air combat capability to levels that increasingly undermine the need for manned combat aircraft. Because of the need for them to accommodate humans, manned combat aircraft are larger and thereby less stealthy. Human presence within their cockpits makes these aircraft less maneuverable. The need to train humans to fly them results in increased lifecycle costs. Under the circumstances, a pilot within the cockpit of a combat aircraft has started to look more like a liability than a pre-requisite.
No one is suggesting that manned fighters will disappear from the skies within the next few years. They won't. Fighters such as the F-35, F-22 Raptor, Typhoon, Rafale and the Russian fifth generation fighter will still be around for a long time, perhaps even beyond 2050. However, they will increasingly play second fiddle to UCAVs, letting them fight the actual battles.
Something else that is evident from the DIS document is that UCAVs will rely more on stealth and less on maneuverability to accomplish their tasks. Once again this is a logical trend that is evident if you look at the present set of US UCAVs such as X-45 and X-47. After all, it makes more sense for a UCAV to let an agile air-to-air missiles tucked within its stealthy underbelly deal with an aerial threat in the event of its own presence being uncloaked, rather than try and be agile itself at the cost of stealth.
The UK has also used the DIS to acknowledge the existence of hitherto classified unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) research projects such as Corax ("Raven") and Herti.
While the Herti, which looks like a powered glider, appears to be a pure research vehicle being used to refine autonomous flight, photographs of the Corax carried in AW&ST and Flight International reflect the emphasis on stealth over maneuverability. The jet powered Corax with its fairly large wing span appears to have a long-endurance surveillance application.
Conclusion
I am sure the DIS will be read with great interest at Air Headquarters. It is an official acknowledgement, by a nation who's Air Force the IAF identifies with more readily than any other Air Force, of the inevitability of the transition to UCAVs.
I hope the DIS is also read by the leadership at ADA and HAL so that they can better appreciate that far too much water has already flowed down the Ganges in so far as the LCA is concerned.
In the days ahead the IAF will need UCAV capability far more than MiG-21 replacements.
Copyright © Vijainder K Thakur. May not be reproduced without explicit written permission.